It would be if the gains were on the level that would justify the adoption of whatever was/is proposed. Give me any tech, green or not, with 10x improvement on what currently exist and I can bet you anything that no amount of capital or vested interest will be able to oppose it - there are exceptions ofc but I would argue that those are far from the norm (if they weren't no progress would ever take place which we know is not true).
>If you view progress as some kind of struggle of the species, like a force of nature, then yes it is indeed grand.
I believe indeed in this former view you describe here. We could argue which of the two views you present is more true than the other, but I think there is plenty that speaks for both. I choose to believe in this version as long as there is evidence to support it.
> But so does "economics is a science like physics". While the former is obnoxious, the latter is dangerous.
I could not agree more. In fact, I think you are the kind of guy who I could sit with and talk to for hours and we'd get somewhere. I don't believe economics is like physics. In fact, I believe economics, like politics, are more like religion. Case and point being the clusterfuck that is the rule of Keynesian economics for the past 80 years or so.
When I say economics I refer to the rational human ability to understand trade-offs. Not all agents are equally capable of it and not all care as much. But, with that said, it does not take a genius to understand what I wrote above (which you originally replied to).
I firmly believe that most of these hippie green suckers wouldn't want to live in the world they themselves describe as ideal. I think they vastly underestimate the prices of things and how much of their living standard is dependent on energy as a whole. It is short-sightedness that pisses me off. You see people complain about living cost being too high in one thread and later on see the same person talk about how we should be greener regardless of cost. This cognitive dissonance buggs me to no end...
Being able to see the trade-offs beyond what is in front of you is what, in my book, classifies as economics. Perhaps I should have been clearer in my definition. But I hope that this clarifies to you where I stand on the matter!